Right in its own backyard, actually. There is someone well suited and available
for the job. He is clever, decisive, and knows how to make headlines.Best of
all, he has a decade of experience as a country's leader under his belt. Unlike
the wishy-washy politicians in Japan, he has no trouble ruling with the iron
glove of a dictator. He knows how to conduct politics behind closed doors, too,
which prepares him well for the Japanese brand of democracy practiced by the
ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Just look at how he quit his last job: By faxing a letter of resignation from
overseas! I'm talking, of course, about Alberto Fujimori, Peru's despotic
president who waited until he was safely in the confines of his motherland,
Japan, before announcing to his other motherland, Peru, that he was quitting the
presidency and not coming home anytime soon.

The only real practical hurdle to Fujimori entering politics in Japan is his
nationality. When he ran for President in Peru in 1990, he assured everyone that
he was a Peruvian, by birth, by citizenship, by blood. Now that things are
looking a little shaky for Fujimori in Lima, we're finding out that he has been
a Japanese citizen all along. He said, obliquely, to reporters outside the fancy
Tokyo hotel where he had set up his new campaign headquarters, that his father,
Naoichi, who immigrated to Peru in the early 1930s, had registered little
Alberto's name in the family registry in their native Kumamoto Prefecture many,
many years ago.

The Mainichi Shimbun newspaper reported that a local official there confirmed
this, but another official told us this week that nobody has confirmed anything
to anybody. It would violate Fujimori's privacy to reveal if he is actually
registered, said the second official.

The lack of transparency and murkiness over Fujimori's citizenship is all too
typical of the way politics works in Japan. Like I said. He's perfectly
qualified. So quick, find him an empty seat in Parliament. The man needs a job.